We're Going Down
by FeelItByTheMoon
Summary: Emily Peters thought she had a normal life. That is, until her Russian boyfriend cheated on her and she was forced to realize he had destroyed her life. Now she has the option of a job that involves living with five other men that she doesn't remember meeting. (Rating may change to M)
1. A Catch-Up

It began on a Sunday afternoon. She was sitting on the porch, the warm summer breeze tousling the long hair off of her neck. One of her long legs hung off of the swing, and her eyes closed to the sun shining on the world. When she opened them, it was still the lazy summer Sunday she had closed her eyes on. Nothing was different, yet as Emily Peters looked around her, it wasn't the same, either.

The boys hadn't arrived yet. It had been six hours since she had gotten off the phone with Gilbert, who had said that he and two of his friends were going to show up to make her feel better about her recent break up with Ivan. It hadn't lasted very long, but over the few years that Emily had started dating, she realized that her fatal flaw was that she fell for people too hard, too fast, and too easily.

Just as she came over this sudden realization, a white pick up truck pulled up and parked in front of her home. Three men came out. The driver door brought out Alfred Jones: Blond, and wearing his bomber jacket, as always, paired with nicely fitting jeans, and his trusty pair of Chuck Taylors that he'd owned since high school. The passenger door brought out both Gilbert Beildschmitt and Mathias Kohler: Gilbert had silvery blond hair, and piercing violet red eyes; he's albino, and it didn't occur to Emily that that was his case until she had started dating Ivan. He was decked in his usual black t-shirt and jeans. He didn't bother with his appearance when it came to seeing Emily. Mathias, however, drew her attention. He was Danish, she knew, and lived with four other men most of the time. But he took care of himself, even if that was his living situation. His hair was styled, and his white button up dress shirt was unbuttoned at the top a little bit to tease women with exposed skin. The sleeves were rolled up, and his jeans looked brand new. He also wore sunglasses, but as the three of them walked up to Emily's spot on the porch, he took them off slowly, and looked at Emily as if she was his soul mate and he had been searching the planet for her.

But Antonio had also looked at her that way, and even after two years after their break up, she still longed for him. Men who looked at women that way were undoubtedly nothing but trouble.

"You look like shit," Gilbert said, laughing, "Like you haven't slept in a while. And when's the last time you showered? Gott, I'm kinda afraid to see what your house looks like if this is how you're treating yourself."

She smiled up at him, and stood. "Thanks, Gil. You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself. Why don't you just leave now? The six hour wait was nothing."

Alfred leaned in close to Gilbert, whispering loud enough for them all to hear, "I think she's being sarcastic, but I can't really tell."

"Oh, Al, you're the best. I love you. No, really, I do." Emily leaned forward to hug him, but he took a large step backwards.

"You're not allowed to touch me until you bathe. It's gross, dudette."

"You also smell like you've been drinking."

"And smoking."

Gilbert looked at her. "This was really hard for you, huh? Let's go inside and get you clean, and fed, and then-"

Mathias had interrupted his sentence with laughter. "Sorry man, but you sound like you just found a stray dog."

Alfred laughed too. "She looks more like a kicked puppy."

Emily's eyes filled with tears. She only wanted Gilbert to come over, he was her best and only friend of the moment. She opened the door and waited for said man to come in, then slammed the door in the other two's faces. Then she began to sob, the past two weeks finally catching up with her.


	2. Cheating Russians and Weird Sisters

Emily

"Sh, liebe. It's alright, alright? I won't let those guys mess with your recovery process, alright?" Gilbert continued to rant on and on to me.

"Gil, shut up. Quit saying 'alright', okay? It's getting on my nerves. And I don't care if they stay or go, I just need someone to be here with me." I sat down on my couch and pulled a blanket over myself. "I'm going to take a nap."

"Oh no you're not," Gilbert yanked the blanket off of me, "You're going to take a shower, and then we're going grocery shopping, and after that we're going to go vandalize Ivan's car."

I lifted my head up. "I only agree with the first two things. And not even really the first."

"When's the last time you shaved your underarms? Your legs? You look like a man. And you're starting to get dredlocks, Em. Super gross," he picked up a piece of my hair as evidence. "I'll do it for you, if that's what you want."

That got me off of the couch. "I'll be like, twenty minutes."

"So why is your place cleaner than usual?" Gil asked as he followed me into my bedroom, picking out the outfit he decided I was going to wear today.

"The people that own it are coming back tomorrow, so I need to be outta here. Like, today." I locked the bathroom door behind me so I wouldn't have to see his face as I said, "So can I crash on your couch until I get a job or something?"

"Actually, no, Em. Sorry." Gilbert said through the door. "But I think Mathias has a guy at his place that needs a nanny."

"I hate kids."

"This kid is really cool, I've met him."

"Whatever. I'll do anything." I took off my sweatpants and unlocked the door. "Do you mind if you pack for me?"

I stepped into the living room, with basically no sign of life anywhere in the house. It scared me, Gil never just left without saying anything. I was almost to the front door when someone swung me up over their shoulder.

"You're really light, you know?" Mathias said as he took me outside. "You're also gonna have to sit on my lap. Just sayin'." He winked at me, and put on his sunglasses. I was suddenly disgusted with both him, and the outfit that Gilbert had picked out for me. I wrung out my hair that was still wet from my shower. The water got on my baby pink shorts, and I couldn't help but shiver, even if I was in a long sleeved gray shirt. I climbed into the cab of Al's truck, and sat on Gil's lap.

"Uh, Emmy? What are you doing?" He asked, clearly uncomfortable with the sitting stiuation.

"Where do you want me to sit then, Gilbert?"

"On Mathias's lap! That's what we all agreed on." He looked at me. "Go on, shoo."

I went over to the passenger side, where Mathias was sitting. He flashed me a smile that I (regrettably) returned. Al got in, slamming the door. He started the car, not saying a word, but looking pissed beyond belief.

"Al...?" I asked. It was always scary when he was mad. He could just want to break something one moment, but then break someone the next.

"What."

"Don't drive angry, please. It scares me." I looked at him intently, trying my hardest to sound sincere instead of terrified.

"You guys hungry? Let's get some burgers. I really want a burger right now." He pulled out another cigarette.

"I thought you quit smoking. You know, for Jacky?"

"Fuck Jacky, and everything I changed for her. She's such a... a... a controller. She just constantly wants to control my life and she crossed the line this time. I'm done with her." He blew some smoke out the window.

"What'd she do this time?" Mathias asked. I could feel his arms wrap around me, but as Al slammed on the brakes and I didn't slam into the dashboard like Gil did, I didn't say anything about it. Plus, it may have felt right.

"She got her panties in a twist about me coming to see Em. I tried to say it was just Emily Peters,nothing special enough about her to get me to leave the girl I loved with all my heart-"

"Asshole."

"-that she was exceptionally plain looking and drank too much-"

"Now you're just trying to piss me off."

"-for my liking, but Jacky just. Dumped me."

I sighed. "Al, you might want to pull over and get out of the car. I have something to tell you and I do not want you to be driving."

After some time, he said okay.

He pulled over as soon as we were in a residental area and unlocked the doors. We got out, but Gilbert and Mathias didn't. We walked to the back of the truck, and I sighed again. This was harder than it seemed.

"She was cheating on you."

"I knew that."

I looked up at him. "With Arthur."

"Didn't know that." He went around to the front of the truck and stood there, staring at his door. He punched it a few times, leaving a notably sized dent in it. He stood there, looking up for a minute. "Thanks, Emily." He came over and hugged me. "Now let's go damage a Russian's vehicle."

We got in the truck and started driving again. Gilbert was the first to talk. "You took that better than I expected, Al. I'm proud of you," he said.

Alfred laughed. "Okay, Emily. Your turn. Talk shit about Ivan."

I tried to look away from all of them. I wasn't really ready to do this. But as we pulled up next to his house and I saw his car, I started to get angry. We spilled out of the car, and I got a can of spray paint out of the back.

"I hate his stupid bowl cut. And he was always with me, I never had anytime for my friends," I started as I painted the word 'cheater' on his Cadillac, "And he cheated on me with his own sister! That's super gross!"

"She was adopted," Mathias put in.

"She calls him 'Big Brother'. It's sickening. Hand me an egg. Anyways, how could he leave me for her?" I opened up the car door. He always kept it unlocked. I put the egg under the brake pedal, and another in the glove compartment. "It's still not fair. I quit my amazing job for him, and now I have to take my chances being a nanny for someone I haven't even met!"

The front door opened and the guys ran, but I stayed. "You ruined my life! I hate you, Ivan Braginski!" I screamed at him. He looked at his car, the paint on it, and stepped toward me, trying to look as menacing as possible to scare me away.

I didn't move.


	3. Bold Women and Stupid Danes

Lukas

I opened the door to Mathias' bedroom, but he was gone. That was weird. He usually had a hangover on Sundays. I closed the door and walked down the stairs, looking at Berwald in the living room reading. "Have you seen the Dane?" I asked him. He shook his head no, thought for a minute, then spoke.

"He went out with some friends."

"It's Sunday," I said.

"Some girl got broken up with and was taking it pretty bad, I think is what he said. I only remember because he said he wasn't going to try to have sex with her."

"We'll never live to see the day when he doesn't try to have sex with someone."

Just then, the front door opened and hit the wall next to it. He was such an idiot. Following him was Alfred and Gilbert, and some girl I didn't remember ever seeing. They were all laughing, talking about some car and eggs and "his face" being priceless. I cleared my throat.

"Oh, hey Lukas! Is Tino around? I think I found their nanny." He smiled at me.

"Anyone who hangs out with you isn't fit to look after children." I looked at her as I said this.

"That's not really fair, now is it?" Her voice was sweet, and laced with laughter from a minute ago. "I mean, you don't even know my name, or who I am. This is actually the first time I've ever met Mathias, too." She looked up at him when she said his name, but kept eye contact with me otherwise. That was strange in itself, since most women found it hard to look at me continuesly.

"That is my mistake then, and I'm sorry. I'm Lukas Bondevik." I said, staring at her, trying to find a fault with her.

"Emily Peters. I forgive you, Lukas." She replied, still looking at me.

"Oh, we have guests!" Tino said as he walked in the room, wearing an apron. "I just finished making lunch, if you'd like to join us. There's plenty for Mathias's... er... friends..." His smile faltered as he laid eyes on Alfred and Gilbert.

Emily strode forward, right hand out for Tino to shake as she said, "I'm actually here to ask you about the whole nanny thing. I'm Emily Peters. I just met the Dane, don't worry," she put her hand to her chest as she laughed, "Being his friend doesn't seem like such a good thing."

"Hey!" Mathias yelled, "What gives you the right to say that!"

"How Lukas over there just treated me seems right enough," she gave a non commital gesture in my general direction. Gods, she used hand gestures a lot.

"Well, Emily," Tino started, "Come into the kitchen with me and we'll discuss the job."


	4. A Small Fin's Small Take

Tino

"So Mathias told you of the job?" It was hard not to smile at her washing the dishes. I was going to do them after lunch, but she insisted upon it.

"Actually Gilbert did. And I kinda need a place to stay asap. So this was kinda perfect." She smiled towards me again, then turned to dry her hands on a towel hanging off the oven handle.

"How good are you with kids?"

"I usually hate kids, but Gil was like 'No Em, zis kid is totally awesome! Almost as awesome as I am!' so..." She trailed off without finishing her sentence, partly because there was nothing more for her to say, and partly because she had started to laugh uncontrollably at her impersonation of the German. I couldn't help but chuckle a little too, she would be perfect with Peter if she was this way with him.

"Well, how about tomorrow you spend the day with him, and if he likes you, then you'll be hired," I say.

"Thank you, Tino!" She chirps, hugging me.


	5. Children Are Confusing

Emily

At lunchtime, I met the other Scandinavian men of the home. Alfred and Gilbert left; no one but Mathias liked them, so there was really no point in them staying. Emil was a teenager and Lukas' brother, although they shared no family resembalance. They bickered constantly throughout the meal, mostly because Emil was refusing to call Lukas "Big Brother". A jolt of pain went through my heart at the first mention of those two words, but it didn't happen again. Berwald was stoic, and was somewhat Tino's partner. I talked to them for the most part, answering questions about myself and only talked to the other three in the room when they asked for my input on topics.

The one part that struck me as odd was that there was no kid. I'd been told his name was Peter, and Tino and Berwald had adopted him from his brother some time ago. I was cleaning up the table and asked Tino where he was.

"He's up in his room. He's very shy," he answered while washing the dishes. "Why don't you take him up some food? That way he can meet you and won't be able to hide behind Berwald," he laughed as he handed me a plate.

"Which one is his room?" I asked as I took the plate. The bottom was moist from his wet hands.

"Across the hall from mine," he said. "You'll know it when you see it," he finished as he saw my mouth open to ask him which one was his.

I opened the swinging door seperating the kitchen from the living room. All of the other men were in there, doing their own thing, basically. Lukas was on the couch reading, Mathias was flipping through a magazine, and Emil was stroking his puffin and whispering into its ears. Berwald noticed me coming out of the kitchen and walked by me to make sure Tino was either in company or supervised. I'm not really sure which one that is yet.

I walked up the stairs and turned to the right, where there was a very wide hallway. To the left was just wall space and then a small balcony opposite the wall of the landing. Pictures and small paintings covered the walls. I looked at all of them, from Emil and Lukas caught being nice to each other and smiling, to Mathias playing with a small boy at a lake. I looked closely at the boy in the picture, and heard a door slam shut. I walked past two bedrooms on either side of each other in the hall, and then came to the next set. One was closed and was probably the one that got slammed, while the other was open. I looked inside the open room and it was clearly a child's bedroom. I turned and knocked softly on Tino's door. It opened just a tiny bit, where I could see a bright steel blue eye look up at me, then slammed shut.

I knocked again. "Peter? Is that you? My name is Emily, and I brought you some food, sweetie." He didn't answer me at all, so after a few moments I gently opened the door, knocking again as I entered.

"Are you the one who's gonna look after me now?" a small voice questioned from the other side of the bed.

"Not if you don't like me," I replied truthfully. If he really did not like me, I wasn't going to have a job, or, more importanly, a place to live. I set the plate of food down on the desk by the door and slowly made my way over to him. He was facing the window, but still refused to look at me. I sat down beside him and looked outside the bay window with him.

"You're pretty." He said at last.

"Thank you."

"You remind me of someone."

"I've never met you."

"Miss Emily, I think you should go and look at the pictures on the walls a little more closely." He walked past me and took the plate of food.

"Look at the pictures closely? The hell is that supposed to mean..." I grumbled to myself as I got off of the floor. I looked at all of the pictures, but in one of the paintings, there was three men in Viking era garb with a woman in a long blue dress. She looked happy with the three of the men, and the painting made her look like she had longing for the man on her right. As I continued to look at the painting, the three men looked like Lukas, Berwald, and Mathias. The woman however, struck me as odd.

She looked just like me.


	6. The Story Begins

Lukas

Peter came down minutes after Emily had gone up with a smug look on his face. He went into the kitchen with the plate of food she had brought him. Tino and Berwald both got up to make sure he wouldn't make a mess. A plate dropped, making me and the Dane put down our reading material, and Emil look up from his puffin.

"Lukas!" Berwald yelled, bursting out of the kitchen. Emily came running down the stairs at the sound of his booming voice. I looked from her to him, worry running through my body. "Peter told her how to find out."

"Find out what?" Emily and I asked at the same time.

Tino came out from behind Berwald with a content smile on his face. "Looks like you'll be staying with us after all, Ingrid."

"So... you're all thousands of years old, and were waiting all this time to find me again?" She asked from the couch. She looked at all of us like we were crazy.

"Basically. Unless you want Luk to tell you the entire story," Mathias said. Stupid man, why would I tell her the story? Telling her the story would cause her to remember. Would cause her to hate me.

"Yes, please. Lukas," she looked at me, "Please tell me. I'm so confused."

"You'll hate me if I tell you."

"No I won't."

"You'll remember if I told you."

"Maybe that's for the best."

I sighed softly, and thought for a moment. "Emily, this all started in the Viking era, as you can tell from the paintings upstairs. Berwald, Mathias, and I were this age during that time, and loved when we got on the boats to raid. One day, we began to raid your village. But I saw you, huddled in a corner, protecting your sick mother and younger siblings from Mathias' ax, and I knew I had to have you in my life. That sounds odd, but you didn't look afraid of dying at all. You looked so fierce, so wild. So I told you we'd leave your village alone if you came to live with us. And you agreed.

"Over the next few years, the four of us grew close to each other. You made sure we were well fed, our clothes were patched, and that our wounds were attended to when we came back from raids. We never talked about the violence part in front of you, as not to upset you, and you were thankful for that. Eventually, I brought back Emil, and you treated him like your son. And... you and I... fell in love.

"And it was wonderful. But it was troublesome, as well. You began to want to come on raids with us, and grew angry with us when we told you no. So you began to teach yourself how to fight, and told our village leader that you were ready to raid with all the other men and the few shield maidens. He let you, and this is the part in the story where it gets... weird..."


	7. Beginning to Remember

Ingrid

"When we got on the boats, we all turned around, yet you weren't with us," Lukas continued. I closed my eyes, trying to remember like he said I would, but nothing happened.

"The next ship to us at the docks was the one full of women, and we saw you with them, laughing as if you were lifelong friends," Berwald continued. I kept my eyes closed still, begging my mind to remember this.

Mathias sat down next to me and took my hands in his lap. "We set sail, and almost as soon as we were out of the fjord, that ship caught fire." They all stayed silent for a moment, and Tino whispered loudly to Peter to go upstairs.

Lukas spoke after a while. "We thought you had died, and we were all devastated. Emil the most, because he had lost a mother. All of the boats turned around. That night, there was a storm that made the tides rise higher than we'd ever seen them. The three of us and a few other men decided to go and attempt to find the bodies, and we recovered all of them, surprisingly, but yours.

"I had this feeling like you were still alive, so I went to our seer, the one who could speak to the gods, to see if we would ever see you again. He had said that we would meet you under a new name, and a new time, when the gods had decided you were ready to come back to me. Specifically me."

"How is this possible?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Berwald said from across the room, staring into a corner.

"I mean, how are we all still alive." I looked at Emil for this one, who was sitting on the stairs.

"Don't look at me..." He put his head in between his knees.

"A spell that I had found. I liked to take books on raids, and I learned to read runes and to cast spells. An immortality spell on all of us. I used it on Emil later in his life, as you can see," Lukas replied nonchalantly.

I nodded and looked up at the ceiling, closing my eyes again. "Please let me remember..." I thought. "Please..."

And there was fire. And cold water all around me. Women were screaming and trying to clutch on to the parts of a boat and shields that were floating around me but the women themselves were sinking because of the chain mail they were wearing. I thrash around in the freezing waters and I see three men in the distance screaming my name, not Emily, but Ingrid, and one is being held back from jumping in after me.

I turn and grab hold of a shield that has made its way to me and kick my legs so that I can hopefully reach them, but it starts raining and the air and water around me and the rain coming down on me is just too cold so I fall asleep...

But I actually wake up. On the couch in the home of five Scandinavian men who are actually thousands of years old with a twelve-year-old boy. Lukas puts a warm cloth on my head. "Enjoy your nap?" He asks, smiling at me with cerulean eyes. "Don't worry, you were only out for two hours. How much did you see?" His face contorted with worry.

"Just the fire and you trying to swim in after me. Then I grabbed a shield and blacked out." I put my hand over his. "Why did you say I would hate you?"

"The way I treated you when you came through that door." He looked down at our hands. "Em-"

I cut him off, "Ingrid. It's my real name, isn't it?"

"A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, Ingrid." He chuckles and stands, then helps me sit up. "You might have more dreams about all of this, so after you wake up from those dreams, tell me about them. Even if it's the middle of the night."

"Oh. But I don't have anywhere to live and-"

Tino walked in with a cheerful smile on his face. "I had Mathias take your things upstairs. You might want to go and unpack, unless you want him going through your... under things..." he walked away, less happy than when he walked in.

I turned back to Lukas. "Nevermind. So ah... wanna help me unpack?"

He nodded his head slightly, and led me up the stairs. We got to the end of the hallway of bedrooms, and to the blank wall at the end of it. He pointed across the hall. "That," he said, "is the Dane's room. Stay out of there at all costs. He gets weird." Next he pointed to the door on the right of where we were. "This is my room. We kinda have to share a bathroom so if Mathias is home drunk go through there." Finally he pointed to the door to the left of his, and closest the blank wall. "And this is your room." He opened the door and let me go inside, where I was immediately drawn to the window facing the backyard. The room was simple and I had decided I would decorate it at a later date. It had what I needed: a bed, a solid roof, and an air conditioner.

Most of my possessions resided in a storage unit Gilbert had. So all that I had brought with me was a suitcase of summer clothes and a box of art supplies, along with other necessities and things I had lying around my last "home". After putting my last shirt in the closet, I started to move the desk away from the window. "What are you doing?" Lukas asks.

"I like my bed by the window. I'm making that possible. You gonna help me or..." I said, dragging the desk past him and into the hallway.

"You should have done this before we put all of your things away."

"We? You just sat in that chair and talked to a fairy."

He looked up at me, startled. "You can see them too?"

"Just little flashes of light everywhere. Sometimes when it rains really hard and I get afraid I can hear them whispering to me."

He looked in front of him and said something, then turned back to me. "They've looked after you all this time. It makes me feel better..."

With his help, I finished moving the bed to where I could see out the window if I just rolled over. It didn't look nice, but it was the way that I liked it and Lukas said that was all that mattered. I sat down on the bed and pulled off my sandals, then patted the space next to me. "Come tell me a fairy tale."

He smiled and lay down in the space farthest from the window, then patted the space next to him. "Come let me tell you a fairy tale."


	8. It's Only Awkward If You Think It Is

Lukas

I told her the story of the peasant, his wife, and the blue flowers. She had made it Emil's favorite story when he was small, and hopefully me telling her this would make her remember more. "Frigga took the peasant by the hand, and led him to stay with her, where she always took care of him," I finished.

"Just like I will always take care of you..." she said, falling asleep. During the course of the story, she had rolled over to lay her head on my chest and was cuddling my side. I stroked her hair as she slept, knowing that when she woke up she would have more to tell me. I was drawn out of the thoughts of what she would have to tell me by Mathias coming in.

"You can't do this, Lukas," he said immediately.

"Do what?" I turned away from her long hair and looked at him confused.

"Act like nothing happened. Act like we're still living in our village in Scandinavia. Like you and her are still in love."

"I'm not."

"Explain this."

"I'm still in love with her, idiot."

"And you think I'm not?" He shouted, slamming the door behind him as he left. Which caused Ingrid to wake up, clutching my chest.

"I washed up somewhere where they spoke differently. I learned their language quickly, it was something Germanic. I lived there for a while but all of my friends got old and died while I stayed young and lived... then I... woke up here," she told me.

"Maybe she had a traumatic event happen every lifetime and she lived somewhere else afterwards," came a grouchy voice from the floor.

"Oh," she said. "He's definitely one of the better looking trolls I've seen."

"You can see the trolls, too?"

"They're the only thing I can see. I can only see bits of lights for fairies, remember? But yes, that is a possibility," she told him. I stared at her for a very long time. What if this was the last time I saw her? I never thought of that during our first time together and I regretted it. Those paintings were all I had of her for the longest time. After a while, no matter how much you love and care for someone, their voice and face slowly slip from your memory. After the first hundred years, I could only remember her eyes. And after that? Nothing.

"Ingrid," I began, "We need to talk."

"I know," she said, "about the we-used-to-be-a-thing-but-this-is-the-first-time-we've-seen-each-other-in-like-a-thousand-years-and-now-are-we-still-a-thing situation?"

"Yeah..."

"I think I love you."

This caught me off guard. "What?"

"I don't know, I feel weird when I look at you. Like romance novels say someone feels when they're in love."

"Well what do you want to do about," I motioned my hand between the two of us.

"The least you could do is take me to dinner first," she said, standing up. She pulled back on her shoes and left me sitting on her bed, wishing she was still asleep.


	9. Whoops

Ingrid

My heart beats quickly in my chest. Greenery flashes behind me and my dress gets snagged under my feet a few times, but I can not stop running. I turn to look behind me, yet there is no one chasing me. I turn to the right, and start slowly walking down a hill to a beach. The breeze is soft and warm, and I look all around before taking off my dress and wading into the warm water. It feels nice, and before long my tanned skin feels aflame.

I turn to swim back to shore, but he's there.

And if he's there, I shouldn't be in the water.

He picks up my dress, my undergarments. He looks out towards me, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Emily, Emily please wake up!" Mathias is shaking me, concern laced through his voice, choking the sound. "Emily, please, it's just a dream. Please wake up."

I tear my eyes open and I am inches away from his face. I bury my head in his chest, trying to find comfort in the broadness of it. He quickly wrapped his arms around me and tried to find a way to comfort me. I pulled away after multiple waves of I'm right here's and It's okay's.

"I'm sorry, Mathias. I messed up your shirt." I looked at the mascara marks on his gray shirt. "I can probably clean that for you, if you want me to.

"Uh, yeah. That would be great. Thanks." He took off his shirt and handed it to me. I wiped under my eyes and tried to stand from the couch, but tripped and fell straight into his lap. He held me there, looking into my eyes, then sighed as he placed his enormous hand on my chest, right on my heart. "It was always you and me, Ingrid. Lukas was the end, but I was the beginning."


	10. Cute Confessions and Cute Blushes

Mathias

"And you can't change the past." I groaned inwardly at my own words. The cheesy-ness of them, as well as the fact that I said them. I was gonna make her remember more than we planned on, and I was going to ruin everything. I walked outside, and didn't stop walking until I reached the stone wall of our backyard.

"Mathias," she called. "What do you mean?" I closed my eyes and lay down behind a bush, knowing she'd never find where I was.

* * *

"Ingrid," I smile at her, rushing across the room to embrace her. It had been weeks since we'd seen each other, and in those weeks I had asked both Berwald and Lukas, as well as the other men on the raid, how to tell her how much I cared about her, how much I loved her. And as soon as everyone saw how serious I was, the ones who had wives or women to call their own were thrilled to tell me how they got them to be that way. I pick her up, spinning us both around in circles, our laughter mingling in the cold air.

"Mathias," she giggles, "what's this all about?" She smiles at me, then looks towards the open door, to Berwald and a few other men that are helping carry Lukas.

"Forget something?" Berwald's voice is harsh as the oncoming winter's wind, cutting through me. I had completely forgotten about Lukas's condition, and instead leapt off the ship before it even docked and ran straight home. To Ingrid.

"Oh Luka," she says, rushing to clear off the table near the fire. "Set him here, take off his, oh thank you," she runs around everyone, gathering water, cloths, the usual when she had to fix us. Which we all knew she hated doing. But she had seen us worse, and Lukas was probably sleeping off his deep cuts. I sat down in a chair, watching as she put a knife into the fire, handle out. I stopped watching her ministrations long ago, and as I look away I know she was sponging away dirt and dried blood, that she was going to seal his wounds with that blade, and in about five minutes Lukas was going to be screaming in pain.

"Lukas is going to be fine," she said suddenly, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Is there anything wrong with you? Any cuts? Let me see, Mathias, please?" I look up at her face, sighing, taking off my shirt. She runs her hands over every ripple of muscle, every scar, every piece of dirt and ink, and decides to let me go this time. "What was all of that holding and touching about?"

I try to figure out what to say to her. Do I just do it now? Not let her be as happy as she was before? Or do I wait? Do it now, a voice says. I grab her arm so she stops looking at Lukas on the table, and pull her into my lap. "M-Mathias..." she breathes, eyes wide, and leans into me, comfortable with this place.

"Jeg elsker dig," I whisper.

* * *

A fat raindrop lands on my face, and thunder rolls in the distance. "MATHIAS!" She calls again, closer now than she was a few hours ago. It feels like a few hours ago. I stand and wave to her, her flashlight falling to the ground and her figure visibly relaxing. I walk over to her, laughing at her face. "You scared the shit out of me, Mat."

"You think you can say that to me?"

She shifts awkwardly. "Let's go inside before we catch cold. I don't want my first days back with you guys spent being sick."

"You found him!" Tino says happily from the kitchen. "Dinner's almost ready, we're in the dining room, Mathias." I walk in to said room, earning glares from Lukas and Berwald.

"You know it's safer if she doesn't know." Berwald immediately stated.

"I know, it just slipped, it won't happen again." I was never the sort for apologies with these two.

"What are we talking about?" Emil asked, walking in with Peter.

"The house idiot might have ruined having Ingrid back," Lukas said, standing up. Probably to come try to strangle me. I wouldn't blame him if he did.

"Oh! You mean how if she remembers more than we tell her had happened you all have to go back to Norway and go back to your real time-"

"That's enough, Peter." Berwald rarely raised his voice to any of us, and it probably would have made him cry had Emily and Tino not walked in with plates heaped with food.

"What'd he do this time?" She asked, ruffling the mentioned's hair, sitting down next to me, across from Lukas, smiling at him as she did so.

"Nothing," the four of us said, looking everywhere but her.

"Let's eat!" Tino said nervously.

* * *

"I had another dream, before I went out looking for Mathias again," Emily said, trying to keep conversation with everyone. But almost everyone stiffened upon hearing this. "It was about Emil," she rushed. He dropped his fork, and I relaxed.

"I never knew Emil when he was small," Tino said. "Tell me about your dream."

I laughed, trying to remember as much as possible. It probably wasn't hard. The dreams she had so far were probably etched into her memory. All of them, unfortunately. "It was winter time, and he had bothered me and Lukas to go out and let him play in the snow like the other children were allowed to do." Emily noticed herself talking in an accent, but brushed it off and continued. "I kept saying no, that he'd get sick, but somehow he had convinced me, so Lukas, Mathias, and I went outside with him. He must have been three, he was so small, and it must have been the middle of winter, because it had-"

Lukas laughed. "Been snowing heavily the night before, so it was up past our ankles when we were in the middle of the field by our village," he smiled brightly at all of us. "And as soon as Ingrid put him down, he tried to run off, but tripped and fell-"

"Face first into the snow, and started crying about how much he hated snow and wanted to go home!" I finished, roaring with laughter. "I had almost forgotten about that." Emil flushed bright red next to Lukas, who just patted him on the back for comfort.

"I'm glad you're dreaming of happy memories too," Lukas told her, his eyes sparkling with life I hadn't seen in a long time.

"Me... too..." she murmured, blushing softly and bringing her fork to her mouth so she wouldn't be expected to talk again.


	11. The Man On The Beach Part 1

Emily

I ended up going upstairs and showering immediately after dinner. Mathias had said those weird things that made me want him, but so had Antonio. And that didn't exactly work out too well. Plus, Lukas made me want to kiss him over and over. Maybe it was because he had told me that we had already been in love, and I felt like things should go back to that? The memory of Emil and the snow hadn't been a dream, he had just cursed at ice falling from the refrigerator, and it came to mind. The dream that had bothered me was the last one with the beach. Who was the man that I was so afraid of? And why was I so afraid of him?

I began rubbing soap onto my skin and thinking of happier things, like Emil. The fact that I had been a mother figure to him amazed me. Besides that I had trouble keeping a man, I had thought it was impossible for me to have children. Antonio was a kindergarten teacher, I could never deal with screaming and crying children that broke crayons and couldn't realize when to wipe the snot from their noses. Why am I thinking of Antonio? Why of him, his boring emerald eyes that sparkled with life, his rich tan skin, his rough yet gentle touch...

I stopped touching my breasts and thighs and quickly rinsed off my body before stepping out of the shower. I sometimes found myself thinking of him on lonely nights, but that would change now that I had these guys from thousands of years ago to keep me company.

Maybe.

* * *

**Agh, short chapter is short. I honestly didn't think it was going to be 282 words, but here it is. I've been a bit wrapped up in stuff for band and school starts in like two days, and I'm kind of losing it with the story. I've got more going on with the other story up here, and then I make myself cry with laughter with another one that I'm afraid to post because I know I won't be able to work on it as much once school starts. Ughugh man I don't know, again, I'm sorry this is so short, I'll try to put out a few more when I have some spare time.**


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